"I think you're right," said Mr. Pawle. He glanced at Viner. "This puts a
new complexion on affairs," he remarked. "We shall have to let the police
know of this. I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Van Hoeren. You won't mind
giving evidence about this if it's necessary?"

"Don't mind nothing," said Mr. Van Hoeren. "Me and the other boys, we
think you ought to know about that diamond, see?"

He went away, and Mr. Pawle turned to Viner and Armitstead.

"I shouldn't wonder if we're getting at something like a real clue," he
said. "It seems evident that Ashton was not very particular about showing
his diamond to people! If he'd show it--readily--to a lot of Hatton
Garden diamond merchants, who, after all, were strangers to him, how do
we know that he wouldn't show it to other men? The fact is, wealthy men
like that are often very careless about their possessions. Possibly a
diamond worth fifty or sixty thousand pounds wasn't of so much importance
in Ashton's eyes as it would have been in--well, in mine. And how do we
know that he didn't show the diamond to the man with the muffler, in
Paris, and that the fellow followed him here and murdered him for it?"

"Possible!" said Armitstead.

"Doesn't it strike you as strange, though," suggested Viner, "that the
first news of this diamond comes from Van Hoeren? One would have thought
that Ashton would have mentioned it--and shown it--to Miss Wickham and
Mrs. Killenhall. Yet apparently--he never did."

"Yes, that does seem odd," asserted Mr. Pawle. "But there seems to be no
end of oddity in this case. And there's one thing that must be done at